What to Tell the Children
by XV
Summary: Miranda is acting out of character and Andy not only dares to think the unthinkable she decides she's going to help her boss come hell or high water.


**What to tell the Children**

_AN/1 This is really not my usual type of story but was inspired by an event and piece of advice my lovely and wise Lady Wife Jane gave to a friend in an iffy personal relationship many years ago._

_AN/2 Possible trigger warning for domestic abuse. _

_AN/3 Tip of the nib to the film First Wives Club which provided the organisation mentioned in the fic._

It was 9:00am, when Andrea Sachs entered the Elias-Clarke building for the second time that morning. She was carrying Miranda's piping hot coffee and moving swiftly toward the bank of elevators. She'd first arrived at the office at 7:30am allowing adequate time for her to confirm the day's schedule and to prepare Miranda's office for the editor's arrival. Having done so, as was her usual routine now, she had then gone to the Starbucks across the road to await Roy's text giving her the 10 minutes she needed to nod her head at the barista to commence making the coffee and allow her to get back to the office within a minute of Miranda's usual 8:30am arrival.

The clever brunette had worked out this routine with Miranda's driver to ensure that her boss' first coffee of the morning was as piping-hot as humanly possible. She'd arranged for calls to be forwarded directly to her Blackberry so in essence she was still at her desk. Andy had the mechanics so fine- tuned that she was almost always just rounding her own desk, having deposited the coffee cup in its' sacred spot on the corner of Miranda's desk, when the editor would appear and toss her coat and bag on the desk in front of her second assistant before continuing into her own office.

This morning however Andy had waited at Starbucks till 8:45am and still there was no text from Roy. She knew the only texted her before he pulled into traffic or if he was well and truly stopped in the middle of a jam so she was reluctant to text him in case he was actually driving. As the clock crept toward 9:00am she decided she would have to text him, Miranda had a 9:30am meeting and she needed to know where the editor was in case it needed to be reschedule.

Heading back to the office, a _'just in case'_ coffee in hand, she texted the chauffeur one handed.

'_Where is Miranda?' _

'_Still in the townhouse. Been here since 7:30. No sign of her. Twins went off at 8 and the Dickhead just after. Still waiting.'_

Andy read the response as she set the Starbucks cup on her own desk. She grimaced at Roy's nickname for Stephen, a sentiment that she shared to be sure, he was such a whiney, demanding putz, and she didn't understand how he'd managed to nab Miranda in the first place. Her attention shifted to the flurry of a heavily laden Emily arriving in the reception area. As usual her morning greeting was barely acknowledged by the red-head as she took the bags straight into Miranda's office. She returned almost instantaneously.

"Where is Miranda?" She glared daggers at Andy as if the brunette was somehow deliberately hiding their boss from her.

"She's not here yet, Roy's still waiting at the townhouse."

"Well bloody hell, she has a meeting in less than thirty minutes." Emily tsked at Andy, again as if she was blaming her colleague for Miranda's absence.

"I know. Um, do you think we should call her?"

Emily looked at the brunette as if Andy had suggested they change into matching harem pants and do the Sand Dance.

"Of course not! Have you learned nothing in the past six months Andrea?" Really. Miranda will call us when she is good and ready." With that she took the remaining bag she had and left to deliver it to Nigel.

Andy chewed her lip uncertainly as she toyed with her phone. She continued to wonder if she really should call Miranda. Glancing at the clock she noted it was now 9:15am, there was no way Miranda was going to make her 9:30am appointment, still she hesitated to actually cancel it without Miranda's instructions to that effect. The time ticked on and she began to worry that maybe something had happened to Miranda, she flipped open her phone deciding to damn the torpedoes and call her boss. As she moved her thumb to the speed dial button the phone rang startling her into dropping it on the desk in front of her. The caller id read Miranda and she quickly picked the phone up and answered.

"Yes Miranda."

"Cancel my 9:30 reschedule it for next Thursday. Also cancel my lunch with Patrick; I'll be working from home today. Inform Nigel I will expect a phone conference with him at 2:30 to go over the Huston photo-shoot. You are not to come to the townhouse to deliver the dry cleaning this evening, you will do so tomorrow evening and tell the Art department to send me the Book digitally. I will be in tomorrow at 7:00am, I expect you to be at your desk. That's all."

Andy looked at her phone in confusion and concern as she tried to process this latest aberration in Miranda's behaviour. Andy had noted that Miranda had started to deviate from her usual routines about six weeks ago when she had walked in, left her bag on the desk, but kept her coat on as she continued into her office, something that had never happened while Andy had been working there, and judging by Emily's expression, never during her tenure as well. The editor had added to the deviation when she shut her office door behind her, remaining in her office for the rest of the day and communicating with her assistants only via email and phone. Two meetings and a run through were cancelled and no one, not even Nigel, entered the office. The one exception had come late in the afternoon when Miranda had emailed Andy to fetch her coffee. When Andy had slipped into the office Miranda's chair was turned toward the window and stayed that way as Andy deposited the coffee on the desk and exited closing the door as she left, Miranda never said a word the whole time the brunette was in her office.

That had been only the first time that Miranda hidden away in her office or changed her schedule so drastically, it had happened twice more and still Andy might have been tempted to dismiss the incidents and put it down to Miranda's reputation for unpredictability if it weren't for the other subtle and not so subtle changes in her bosses' behaviour in the weeks following that first incident. Even though it was spring, Miranda continued to wear only long sleeves, lots of sweaters and almost exclusively high collared blouses as well as an inordinate number of ensembles with slacks rather than skirts or dresses. Andy was puzzled why neither Emily nor Nigel seemed concerned when she brought up these obvious wardrobe anomalies. Emily had hissed that Miranda was the fashion icon and could wear what she bloody well pleased, Nigel had merely shrugged and commented that the older woman was still a trend setter, and maybe she was showing those in the business that spring didn't have to mean chintz, florals or sundresses. Andy was neither impressed nor convinced with either response and started to watch Miranda even more closely than was her usual practice.

Andy made the necessary calls and began to once again update and change Miranda's schedule when something on the screen caught her attention. She clicked on the previous day and scanned through the appointments zeroing in on a last minute change to an evening business dinner with Vera Wang which had replaced a dinner date with Miranda's husband. The meeting had been urgent and unavoidable because the designer was flying to Australia for a six week stay the following day and Miranda had some serious concerns about the designer's newest collection due to be included in the February issue of Runway.

Something about the cancelled dinner with Stephen the night before followed by Miranda's odd behaviour this morning seemed to click into place and raised a red flag in Andy's mind. She opened her bottom desk drawer and pulled out her large D&G hold-all rummaging around for her personal journal. Flipping back through her entries for the previous few weeks where she had noted Miranda's weird little behaviours, Andy cross-checked them with Miranda's schedule on screen. With a sinking feeling in her stomach she noted that her boss' changed behaviour always seemed to follow a broken or truncated appointment with her husband. There had been four such events in total in the past six weeks.

Andy checked the details three times because she couldn't bring herself to accept her suspicions of what might be happening with Miranda, but all the clues seemed to fit and she could think of no other possible explanation for the strange behaviour. The conclusion she had to come to was that Miranda Priestly, the Dragon Lady, the hardest and most powerful woman Andy had ever met, was in an abusive relationship. Andy wasn't naïve, she knew domestic abuse was no respecter of money, background or social standing, Park Avenue or the Bronx it happened everywhere to anyone, but even knowing this she just had a hard time believing the self-assured and driven woman that was her boss, would allow herself to be abused in that way. The only saving grace that came to mind was that it did appear to be a new development, or possibly less likely she hoped, a resurgent one.

Slumping back in her chair Andy looked at the accusing schedule and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now? The option of doing nothing, which she knew in her gut is what Emily would choose, simply wasn't possible for her, she knew that she would do something and she knew it would likely either end up in her being fired, in jail for assault on the dickhead or probably both of the above, one following closely on the heels of the other. Sighing in frustration at the perversity of the universe and not able to do anything at the minute, she closed the schedule deciding to think about her options a little longer and to wait till she could make a call to the one person she felt might be of some practical help given the issue, her grandmother.

The next morning at 6:45am Andy placed a piping hot latte on Miranda's desk and went back to the outer office just as the ping of the opening elevator could be heard in the distance. Emily would not be here for another hour as Andy had interpreted Miranda's instructions verbatim, no mention of the first assistant's presence meant she hadn't bothered to tell the Brit to come in early, it was all for the best as she would need some time alone to approach Miranda.

The brunette's stomach was tied in several uncomfortable knots as she double checked the details written in her opened notebook, the result of some late night online research she hoped she would be able to get Miranda to accept. When Andy got home she'd spent an intense and draining hour on the phone with her grandmother, who as she had hoped, had been able to give her some excellent advice as well as sharing some important previously unknown facts about familial history that might prove the most useful of all with Miranda.

A little more than a minute after the elevator's arrival the fashion maven made it to the outer office somewhat startling Andy because of the lack of rapid fire clicks from the quick and purposeful strides that usually heralded Miranda's path along the corridor. The reason for this lack of warning was immediately obvious in the stiff and slow gait of the older woman as she walked straight past Andy and into her office without a single word, once again closing the door behind her. If Andy had been entertaining any lingering doubts about her assessment of the situation they were laid to rest after that entrance. Glancing at the clock on her computer she decided to give Miranda some time to settle in and perhaps call her in for instructions of her own volition.

Fifteen minutes later Miranda had yet to make contact and Andy gathered her notebook and her courage and went to confront the Dragon in her lair. She had a certain amount of confidence that she could get through to Miranda, but had hedged her bets somewhat the night before, staying up late and revising her resume just in case. Taking a final deep breath she turned the knob and pushed the office door open entering quickly and pushing the door shut behind her.

At the quiet snick of the door shutting Miranda's head whipped up and Andy couldn't help the shocked gasp that escaped her lips when she clearly made out the red and purple bruising around Miranda's right eye even under the heavy layer of makeup with which her boss had tried to hide the damage.

"Get out! How dare you!"

Miranda growled dangerously even as she grabbed at the large Fendi sunglasses she'd worn earlier and put them on in some misguided attempt to hide what had already been seen by her second assistant. Keeping her voice low and even Andy continued forward into the room.

"No, I'm not going anywhere Miranda." Andy sat down in one of the chairs she'd earlier placed in front of her boss' desk. Making sure to keep her facial expressions as neutral as possible she began the conversation, carefully paying attention to how she worded things just as her grandmother had advised.

"I want to help Miranda. I promise I'm not about to say a word to anyone, ever."

"You're fired."

Andy hazarded a guess that Miranda was glaring daggers at her behind the dark glasses but took the fact she couldn't see the look and allowed that to bolster her confidence as she replied as she'd planned to if Miranda did in fact fire her.

"That's your prerogative Miranda. I'll clear my desk after we finish here."

Miranda's jaw literally dropped in surprise at this presumptuous declaration and Andy, who had calculated there was a good 90% chance that her termination would be Miranda's initial response, jumped right in and took advantage of the Editor's continued state of shock.

"Before you decide to call security to have me removed, I want you to just listen carefully to what I have to tell you. You don't have to reply, you don't have to say anything, just listen, it will take a little while to get through."

When Miranda still didn't respond, but also didn't make a move toward her phone, Andy relaxed a little into her chair and she began to speak.

Miranda had been expecting some kind of outpouring of pseudo-sympathetic platitudes filled with statistics and self-help buzz words or worse mawkishly pitying commiserations and offers of assistance, both of which she could have and would have dismissed immediately, probably accompanied by a severe escalation in her temper and putting in that call to security the girl had obviously expected. Instead she found herself listening to Andy's steady and surprisingly soothing voice telling her about her own Mid-Western family history.

"My mother grew up in an exclusively female household, just my grandmother Grace and her two sisters, Rebecca and Hope. The three girls were triplets and always a handful for Gran but she did her best by them and they know that and love her for that and a million other reasons. After college both my aunts moved out of state, but Mom stayed in Mansfield where she met my Dad a couple years later, eventually they married and had my brother and me.

Gran lived about five miles from us and played a big role in my life because she became our babysitter when mom went back to work as a High School teacher when John was 12 and I was eight. Gran taught both of us to be kind and helpful and respectful to everyone, to be responsible for our own actions and to stand by our word once given, she was really big on personal responsibility especially in relation to social interaction. Gran taught Johnny to always respect women and to treat them as nothing less than equals, by example and by express instruction. She taught me to always stand up for myself and to place value on my thoughts, experience, opinions, well basically to value myself.

When I was younger, about seven I think, I'd asked Gran why she didn't have a husband, mainly because it meant I had fewer grandpas than my best friend Lily. Lils had, with the help of step-parents, a total of eight grandparents, all of whom doted on her, lots of presents on birthdays and Christmas. I only had Gran and Pop and Nana my Dad's parents. I thought it grossly unfair and wanted to know why I didn't at least have two grandpas like a lot of kids did. All Gran would say was that she and my mom's father had divorced when mom was four years old and that he'd gone away from Mansfield shortly after the divorce. I asked my mom about her father a couple of times after that but she basically just repeated what Gran had said so I kind of got bored with the subject and let it drop.

Mom and Dad didn't allow me to go on my first proper date until I was 16. On the 'Big Day' of the date, Gran came over in the afternoon and asked me to go for a walk in the woods at the end of our road. I didn't think much of it when we set out, it was something we often did when we got the chance.

When we'd been walking for a little while she started to talk about her early life and my grandfather, how they'd met and when and why they'd married. Growing up she'd told us stories about her parents and from her childhood and that of my mom and her sisters, but never anything from Gran's teens or early twenties was ever mentioned. Gran came from a well to do upper middle class background, my great-grandfather was a lawyer and later a judge, and her mother was a doctor; pretty bad-ass for a woman in the first quarter of the 20th century. Even more radical was that great-gramps actually worked three jobs to put her through med school before he went on to his own studies in law, she always spoke of them with fondness and pride"

Andy paused chancing a quick glance at Miranda to see how the woman was reacting to this litany of mysterious details about her family history. The woman seemed to be willing to continue listening, so Andy continued to the more relevant part of her story.

"That day she chose to fill in the blanks in her life, in vivid, brutal detail. She met my mom's father when she was 20. He was 25, a naval officer just invalided out of the Korean conflict after a shell burst one of his eardrums causing permanent hearing loss in that ear. He'd been just about to graduate from law school before he joined up and Gran's dad was helping him study for the bar exams. He came from a well to do family in Columbus, big business, surgeons, doctors and the like. He was handsome and smooth and a real charmer and Gran fell for him hard, one thing led to another and before she knew it she found out she was pregnant. When she told him he asked her to marry him and seemed stoked at the idea of their having a baby.

Gran quit college, telling herself she'd go back to complete her English degree after the baby was born, and they married quickly enough that they'd be able to claim a realistic premature birth when the baby arrived in seven month instead of nine. Everything was fine at first, his studies were going well and he kept waxing lyrical about what he'd teach his 'boy', his 'son'. He wouldn't hear a word said to gainsay he'd produce a son with his manliness. Gran was just thrilled he seemed so pleased about the pregnancy and assumed he'd be happy enough with a healthy baby girl if that's what they had and the prospect of trying for a boy again in the future. Who knows, maybe that might have been the case, but not only did he not get the son he wanted, he got three babies, all girls, all at the same time and it definitely caused a change in his behaviour.

They hired a housekeeper and a nanny to help with the babies, an absolute necessity as Gran needed to physically recover from the birth. Two months later he started demanding his conjugal rights insisting they'd get a boy this time. When Gran said it was too early, he got verbally abusive and pushed her until he basically ended up raping her. Gran was totally shocked, didn't know what to do, she asked her doctor for an official letter to say she needed more time to recover, but it was the early 50's so her doctor basically told her to grit her teeth and it would eventually get better, told her if she got pregnant again then her husband would ease off then.

Well she did get pregnant again four months later but she was a physical and emotional wreck by this time, the bastard basically raping her nearly every night to get what he wanted. She ended up having a miscarriage at 16 weeks. Gran stopped us walking at this point and said one of the most chilling and totally fucked up things I've ever heard, she said that's when it really got bad, apparently 4 months of nightly rape wasn't that bad."

Andy paused again, unable to keep the anger and loathing out of her voice. She looked at Miranda who remained silent and noted the woman was now leaning her head back against her chair. The sunglasses still in place Andy wasn't sure if her eyes were open or closed, but the tension in her body indicated she was definitely still listening.

"He started to beat her whenever he decided she'd done something, like I don't know she hesitated to get him his 6th scotch in an hour or it had rained that day. He waited a couple weeks after the miscarriage and then the nightly rapes started again. It took another two months but he got her pregnant again. Gran never told anyone, never made a sound if she could help it when he was hurting her and she treated her own injuries, because as with most abusers, especially those from affluent backgrounds, he usually made sure to damage her where it wouldn't be too obvious, upper legs, torso upper arms, places that could be covered up. The odd injury that couldn't be covered up was easily explained by clumsiness or other silly accidents."

Miranda gave forth a half strangled murmur at the last piece of information struck a chord but made no move to stop Andy's tale. The younger woman waited for a few seconds just in case something more might be forthcoming from her audience before she continued.

"He'd stopped beating her when she got pregnant but had come to enjoy her pain and humiliation and started little tortures like cigarette burns and the odd careful slap to the cheek. This time she managed to carry the baby for nearly 20 weeks before she started to get really sick. Gran ended up in hospital with pre-eclampsia. Back then there was a damn good chance she could have died but she lucked out with a rogue doctor who actually induced labour and then essentially aborted the foetus in order to save Gran's life.

I wish I'd had the chance to meet that doctor and thank him, because it was him who ended up essentially saving my Gran's life. He'd also noted her catalogue of injuries and put two and two together about what had been happening. He had no qualms at all and informed Gran's parents of her condition, and they tried to step in and help her get away from the bastard.

Now this was the part that totally freaked me, then and now, Gran refused to leave him at that point. Apparently Great-gramps had gone over and beat the crap out of the little shit and he'd showed up at the hospital all banged up crying about how sorry he was and he'd never do it again and Gran believed him, thinking he'd been given a good wake up call. Somehow she managed to convince her parents that it would be okay now and he'd changed, but of course he hadn't, just four months later he lost a big case got drunk and beat Gran so hard he broke three of her ribs.

She called her mother and she came and got her and the children, Great-gran treated her injuries and tried to convince her to leave the bastard and to press charges against him. At first Gran was still reluctant, she was embarrassed at what she saw as her failure to choose a good husband and then failing to make the marriage work, eventually though her mother managed to convince her that she had to leave if she was going to survive. She even managed to get my Gran to agree to report the prick to the police.

Great-gramps standing in the community and being a judge helped in that aspect and the police did the virtually unheard of for the time and actually charged the bastard and it went to trial where again, by some miracle he was convicted to 6 months in prison. Gran was granted a divorce and never had anything to do with the bastard ever again. He never saw his children again; Gran said the last she'd heard he'd died in a car accident sometime around the triplet's 17th birthday."

By this point Andy was fighting back the sting of tears, just as she had when her grandmother had told her the details almost ten years before and as they had last night when they'd talked about it again. Hastily wiping the moisture that had managed to escape she sat forward to finish off the epilogue to her story.

"When Gran finished telling me that horror story she turned to me and told me she was sharing this with me now because I was old enough to know and now that I would be dating and looking to establish relationships I needed to know. She reminded me that no-one, man or woman had the right to physically, mentally or emotionally abuse another human being no matter their relationship to each other. She said that if I ever did find myself on the receiving end of such abuse, the one thing I needed to understand and completely accept was that it was not and could not be my fault because there was nothing I could ever do that could justify that kind of response. She made me promise that if it should ever happen I would get the hell out immediately and seek help from family, the police anyone and everyone, but I was not to try and work things out, it wasn't a three strikes situation, one strike of any kind was an immediate out."

At this point Andy got up from her chair and moved slowly round Miranda's desk till she was beside the older woman's chair. Miranda still didn't say a word but Andy noted her rapid shallow breathing and how her head turned slightly to watch her progress toward her.

"Miranda, there is no possible justification for Stephen's actions and I'm here to help you, please, please let me help you."

Still receiving no response Andy went down on one knee and used all the courage she had left on her next gamble as she reached out and placed an open hand on Miranda's forearm. She stayed there for what seemed like hours before the older woman reached up with her free hand and slowly removed the designer glasses. Unable just yet to deal with what she might see in those earnest brown eyes, Miranda kept her eyes shut as she tilted her head slightly to allow Andy to exam her damaged face. This close the application of concealer was quite useless as the livid purple bruising all around the outer eye and down part of her cheek was obvious, as was a small cut right under the eye itself.

Andy's heart squeezed seeing the ugliness where only beauty should reign. Her first instinct was to reach out and try and soothe the obvious hurt, but she didn't think Miranda was ready for that kind of familiarity so instead she gave Miranda's arm a gentle squeeze to acknowledge her action.

Continuing to watch Miranda's reactions Andy knew she still had some work to do, the older woman hadn't said anything yet, hadn't invited any help or even acknowledged that she needed any help. Hoping to finally convince Miranda she pulled out the last card in her deck, the one that her grandmother had given her the previous night.

"Miranda, I only figured out what might be happening yesterday and I phoned my Gran last night to ask her advice about what I should do to try and help. She was really helpful and I've already done some of the things she suggested. While we were talking it struck me that I'd never asked her what it was that her mother had said that finally convinced her she needed to act, so I asked her and she told me."

Miranda finally looked directly at Andy, interested in the answer in spite of herself.

"Gran said that Great-gran was losing ground until mom happened to toddle into the room crying because her sister had taken her favourite doll. The nanny came in right away and took mom with her as she left. When they'd gone, Great-gran asked Gran what she would say to my mom if she came to her in the same circumstances when she was married. Gran said it was like being plunged into an ice bath when she thought about one of her precious babies being raped and abused as she'd been and it finally broke her resolve."

Andy's knee was beginning to cramp so she grabbed hold of the desk to drag herself upright before she contextualised that information for Miranda's needs. Her face full of compassion and her voice gentle but firm she pushed forward. Knowing how much she loved her girls, she dared to ask the question.

"Miranda, what would you do if you discovered Caroline or Cassidy was in an abusive relationship? What would you tell them? Because whatever it is, that's what I'm saying to you right now, do for yourself what you would want them to do."

Andy watched as Miranda seemed to dissolve in an instant, tears springing to her stormy blue eyes and she allowed her own caring instinct to take over as she moved forward and pulled the older woman into a gentle embrace as she murmured words of comfort into the soft white hair. Miranda gathered her breath and vocalised her need.

"Help me Andrea."


End file.
